• Published 3rd Dec 2013
  • 1,716 Views, 59 Comments

The Retaking of Canterlot - Charles Rocketboy



The Wedding Gambit has succeeded - Chrysalis has won. But Equestria isn't going down without a fight!

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Cabinet War Clouds

Salad Daze hadn’t been invited to the wedding and had spent a good few days making herself feel insulted, only to give up and have a drink. Maybe more than “a” but screw it. She’d made the Progressive Party, she’d spent eight hard years in the shadow cabinet and as party leader getting the pro-technology message out there, circling round the kingdom, over to the dominions – she was the first party leader of any party to go to Neighpon in years – and the slogan, “The White Heat of Progress”, she was pretty sure that was hers. (Or was it--? Damn, what had been that PR colt’s name?) So she liked a drink and a party, everyone had to unwind after all that work.

And then one day, all the ponies in her shadow cabinet had come together and told her that “for the good of the party”, she had to step down for the next election. She was getting a bit out of hand and “needed help”. She could be Party Chairpony in recognition. And that was the election the Progressives won a majority, and that was Salad Daze done. Wouldn’t that make you drink? Everything she’d fought for and other ponies profited in the end. Scalpel Wit profited, she’d given that mare a job and right in the back…

And now she didn’t get the invite. A nationwide train network was part of her old manifesto, try seeing half the guests turn up in time without that.

Salad Daze was drinking a third glass when there was a knock at the door. The earth pony considered combing her green mane, decided she couldn’t be arsed, and opened the door to see two Town Watch ponies looking like Tartarus had opened.

“Ma’am, we need you to come with us. There’s, ah, we’ve been told to tell you Code 113.”

Oh, well now she definitely needed a drink. “Okay. Just… okay. What does Prime Minister Wit want me for?”

“She did not make it out of the redoubt, ma’am.”

“Then who is—oh. Oh, no. You…” Well, you had to laugh (so she did). Be careful what you wish for and all that.

Bloody, bloody damn.


***

When he’d seen Great-Aunt Celestia get smashed into the floor, Blueblood had… well, he’d been grabbed by one of the guards and yanked out of the hall. He’d been relieved but quickly decided he was (should be) angry that a guard was denying him the chance to stand up and fight the enemy. He struggled, or that’s what he told himself anyway. He certainly yelled at the guard: “Unhand me!”, “I pay your damn wages!”, all that.

And then the great shield broke and the changelings came down in their thousands and the guard teleported them (Blueblood hadn’t noticed what species the guard was until then) right into Canterlot Central and then the changelings hit that, and he started yelling for the guard to protect him as he ran. He’d shouldered ponies out of the way to get onto that damn train and once he was on he realised the guard wasn’t.

Out the train window, you could see the guard being swarmed. Then the train started moving and he vanished from sight.

Blueblood suddenly wished he hadn’t yelled so much at the stallion, and then he briefly feared that he wouldn’t be safe surrounded by the common folk on his own but another guard came through… and past him without paying attention, and that was the thing that finally shocked Blueblood. He was Prince Blueblood. He was eleventh in line for the throne in case anything happened to Celestia! And it had, and yes, okay, Luna would be taking control but he was still bally important! What was going on if the Royal Guard could ignore him?

Seriously, what was going on? What was a changeling anyway? Where had they all come from, why was he being taken out of the city—

“Sire.” The guard was back. “Sire, I need you to come with me.”

That’s more like it, he thought but said, “Look here, colt, what is going on? This is an intolerable--”

“Under-Se—I’m sorry, Secretary of Self-Defence Greyjoy will be able to fill you in better than me.”

Blueblood was ushered to the front of the train, the first-class carriage (this was more like it), where a unicorn mare with a completely dull grey coat and mane, with sharp teal eyes, was going over a table of paperwork. She glanced up at him, grimaced, and back to her work. “Is he it?”

“I think I saw a Conservative Party MP. Represents Everfree, I think—“

“Fetch him please.” Then Greyjoy – he assumed – turned back to Blueblood. “This will be easier to explain just the once,” she said, then back to her papers.

“Look here, I’m a Prince and I demand to know what’s going—“

“113.” What was that? She looked at his reaction and said “Military code meaning Celestia, Luna and Cadence are missing in action. As well as Canterlot lost, as well as the Elements of Harmony.” And then back to the damnable papers after just telling him the world as known was dead

The guard came back with a portly earth pony, a scuffed and dirty suit covering a reddish hide. He looked like he’d eaten all the pies and they were disagreeing with him. “Greyjoy? I’m Stoutheart, I don’t understand what… Oh. Oh, please tell me this isn’t a continuity government.”

Greyjoy nodded. “For purposes, assume every minister in Canterlot is captured. It will be us and whoever was outside the city today.” Back to Blueblood, and why was she looking at him like that? “With your assent, sire.” Then back to papers, like her life depended on them. “The changelings are a race of shapeshifters that feed on love – standard procedure is to replace a loved one. They can also imprison a sentient and drain them over a few days. We believe – sorry, the Ministry, Prime Minister Scalpel Wit, that we – that Queen Chrysalis, the changeling’s commander, is planning to do this with all Canterlot.”

Her horn glowing, she levitated several photos around: empty ships, an island resort that you wished was empty. “Intelligence suggests they’re responsible for the loss of a griffin pleasure cruise and a zebra trading vessel, and we know they’re responsible for the loss of Seadonia—“

“I remember them,” interrupted Blueblood. “One of those islands that ponies set up because they think Great-Aunt Celestia is a dictator and there’s too much harmony, isn’t it? All that ‘Solar Empire’ silliness.”

Greyjoy flashed her eyes up at him and there was enough disdain in them to make him fall quiet (what had he done?). “Yes. They had ponies on them that were defenceless and had no ties to Equestria, and could be secretly devoured.” (Oh.) “The pattern suggests dry runs, getting the swarm trained and building up a larder. We learned Queen Chrysalis planned to attack Canterlot, on paper our defensive plans worked. The problem is that we didn’t expect Shining Armour to be… compromised.

“We have contingency plans for the fall of Canterlot and continuity government, but most assume we have time to evacuate and that the princesses are here.”


That was the last she said for a while.


***

Cloudsdale was in uproar – it was common knowledge that the city was the first redoubt in emergencies, being the only city in the world that could move under its own power, but it had been decades since anyone had expected this to be needed. Everywhere were armoured pegasi from the 2nd Cloudsdale Dragoons and the City Watch, trying to lock down the entire sky. The Dragoon HQ had been made the temporary government HQ too, so that had the extra chaos of pegasi and airsick land ponies (enchanted to cloud walk or, in some cases, with butterfly wings) rushing around with papers and chairs or just rushing.

You got through all that and the Cabinet War Room, which was actually the officer’s mess for the moment, was almost a bastion of order. Except the acting-Prime Minister Salad Daze kept tapping her hoof against an empty glass, Stoutheart (the temporary Minister of Justice and Emergency Planning) kept leaving his chair to pace, Blueblood kept barking orders for updates every ten bloody seconds, and there was a very worried goat, Billie of the Plaid Capra party, who looked like she didn’t know why she was there at all. Greyjoy looked calm on the surface until you wondered how many times one mare needed to check those papers. Brigadier Geldmore of the Dragoons (because he was the highest-ranking pony in the area and they didn’t have time to wait for a general) was keeping a stiff upper lip but Blueblood’s constant demands were making his eyes twitch.

This is what the new Ministry of Labour – and, as the most senior United Species Party MP anyone could find (Hottrot lived in Cloudsdale and had been home ill), the Deputy PM – found when he walked in. He waited a few seconds and then boomed out: “So, we know what we’re doing then! Hooray!”

“I don’t know why I’m here at all!” burst out Billie. “The Prince here calls my party traitors every other week! And I’m not meant to live in the sky, how do you pegasi stand this? The floor’s a freaking cloud!”

“Why is she here?” asked Blueblood.

“For obvious reasons, none of the two goats from the independence-from-pony-monarchy-boo-hiss party were at the royal wedding and she’s the leader, and coalition governments need senior MPs,” said Salad Daze (tap, tap, tap). “Meet the Minister Without Portfolio, aka the one who does the tie-breaking. She thinks you’re a parasite on her species but if I have to put up with the MP for Students and Armchair Radical Bourgeoisie, what the hay.”

“MP for the Ponies, as the slogan goes! No offence there, Billie,” said Hottrot, easing into a seat – that had indeed been his election slogan, the red-mane pegasi was very good at coming up with them. “So are we all here?”

“We are,” said Blueblood, hardly looking happy with his war cabinet. “Geldmore?”

The Brigadier got up; olive-green, moustached, slightly paunchy but crammed into full combat armour ‘just in case’. “Our immediate forces are the Dragoons, of course, currently at three thousand fighters, engineers, and medics.” His voice was stuffy and ramrod straight. “The 7th Emergency Response Cavalry (they number 1,100) are grouping near Ponyville, along with a thousand ponies from the Territorial Army’s Everfree Regiment and thirty from the Wonderbolts reserve. In approximately ten hours, the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the North’s Watch will be arriving outside north Canterlot via train – that’s six hundred.”

“The Cavalry are primarily disaster and monster response, not combat,” said Stoutheart.

“That’s true, sir.”

“The Watch can only spare 600? They’re a massive regiment!”

“Castle Pink say they cannot send more than that without creating a security risk.”

“Is that it?” asked Blueblood (he could see Geldmore was affronted and didn’t care). “We only have one proper combat brigade and that’s because they’re living right here, and everyone else is a reservist, a Manticore basher, and whoever the Watch deign to send? Where’s the rest of the army? Canterlot has fallen!

“The rest of the army is mobilising but will take time to arrive,” snapped Greyjoy. “This should be obvious. For the moment, we only have this force to work with.”

“How do we only have that?! We’re Equestria, for Sun’s sake—“

“Yes, that’s a shock!” snapped Daze (taptaptap). “The country surrounded by peaceful neighbours and that hasn’t had a conventional war in thirty years has an army restructured for what it does face, which is random disasters and monsters and magical idiots with amulets! Similarly, we don’t trenches and pillboxes across the Griffon borders!”

“What are the changeling numbers?” Billie asked Geldmore, quickly and loudly.

“We estimate anywhere between twelve to sixteen thousand. Normally the city could hold them off until reinforcements arrived but it would not normally the enemy would not know every Royal Guard position, nor be able to turn the main defences off, nor would early-warning lines be cut.”


”So we wait until the main force arrives, I assume,” said Stoutheart.

Tap, tap, tap. “Changelings get strong off love, that’s how Chrysalis beat up Celestia, yes?” said Daze. “So we leave them with Canterlot, they’re only going to get stronger and stronger. All of them. Then we all get to fight super-changelings.”

“But we don’t have even seven thousand ponies on hand, let alone twelve to sixteen! We can’t - I assume we can’t make an attack already?”

“We can,” said Greyjoy, “but we run the risk of severe casualties or outright failure. Potentially, we could lose most of the force. That would, however, distract the changelings from harvesting up the citizens and then the main army has the advantage. It should be on the table.”

“You’re advising we deliberately send ponies to die?”

“I’m saying it should be on the table.”

“And we can’t send every soldier to Canterlot because then we’re leaving somewhere else vulnerable,” said Billie.

“The positions of major cities—“ began Greyjoy.

“I’m from Gruff Valley, what about there? Or the rural heartlands and small towns? We can’t commit everything to one city, even if it is the capital.”

”Recon flights have found pockets of resistance,” said Geldmore, cautious. “Six to start with but down to five now. Not all of the Royal Guard has been captured and there seem to be civilians assisting them, and we can assume others may be waiting for aid before rising up. We have an unknown number of allies on the ground and the changelings are definitely not trained to the standard of Equestrian soldiers, it might not be a massacre…”

“And if the changelings dig in, you and the lovely Greyjoy are saying it’s definitely a massacre,” said Hottrot. “Well, who wanted a boring job in government, eh? Guess our first decision is this one.”

“If the changelings can do all this, why… why only now?” asked Stoutheart.

“They haven’t been this organised in over four hundred years,” said Greyjoy, eyes flicking over a sheet. “The history is complicated but the basics are that the Changeling Hivegemony was a superpower that dominated the Aerstrapun continent. They openly ruled a collection of client species, feeding off the background love or more; by our standards this was a horror but it was stable. By the time Equestria reached Aerstapun, the Hivegemony was tearing itself apart in a civil war – most records were destroyed, along with most of the client species. We got lucky. A few years earlier and they’d have been conquering us instead. Since then, most ponies believe they’re extinct.

“Chrysalis is trying to create a new ‘Kingdom’ for the species. Intelligence was warned of the Canterlot plot by a changeling defector. We’ve only seen one defector or dissenter. It’s that sort of kingdom.” Greyjoy bit her lip. “Don’t ask if we can question him more. Transquito was in a safe house in Canterlot that Shining Armour knew about. He’s dead or worse now.”

The room went silent; Blueblood and Hottrot both felt the need to fill that silence, but neither had the chance. A messenger came in with a green globe, glowing like sick, in her mouth. It took a few seconds for everypony to recognise it as a message orb, a magical means of instant communication that the higher unicorns could pull off, and what the colour signified.

“It appeared on base,” said the messenger. “We’ve checked it for traps.”

Suddenly Blueblood didn’t feel like talking, and so Hottrot went through, his voice normal at last. “Queen Chrysalis, I presume?”

The orb flickered once and the changeling’s face appeared in the centre. “Finally. I sent this thing half an hour ago, I do have other things to do, you know. I tried to send this direct—“

“What’s your message?” asked Blueblood, trying for calm but hearing the slight shake in his voice.

Chrysalis looked bored. “You’re the acting monarch? Now that’s just sad. You know everyone laughs at you behind your back? Well, I’m sure someone here is the real boss, so: I have a very reasonable proposition for you all! There could be a war and I could defeat you as I did Celestia and I could feast on your captives and sweep through this land, but I’m feeling in a good mood so how about I promise to leave Equestria unharmed? All the little foals shall sleep safe in their beds and no stallion has to die for his country and Blueblood gets to pretend to be adequate – and I’ll make sure your princesses continue to raise the sun and moon from captivity, because I quite like the world not being dead.

“And all I want from you is to agree that Canterlot is mine.

“And it is – you lost it in minutes. There’s a changeling on every street corner. We’re up a mountain and we have your weapons here. And you definitely can’t starve us out when there’s a million walking lunches with us but don’t look at me like that, we’ll keep them in good health—“

“I’ve seen the photos of Seadonia!” spat Stoutheart, rising to his feet. “Over three hundred dead!”

“Yes, yes, we had a few teething problems with our new farming method back then, but we have that sorted.” She smiled, showing teeth. “Let me a bit more blunt: I flattened Celestia in five seconds. I have all your colleagues and could execute them at a whim. The city – is – already – mine. Fighting to keep it will just be a long, expensive hassle for the both of us but every time we take one of you, we get more food. You are a lot easier to starve out. I’ll admit that you might win but the suffering and death will be a lot more than one million, and what do you think will happen to Canterlot in this war anyway?

“Do the smart thing.”

Silence.

Then tap. Tap. Tap.

“I’m very sorry,” said Salad Daze, “but I thought this was Equestria.”

“I don’t understand—“

“No, I don’t expect you do.”

Then she threw her glass at the orb and it broke to bits on the surface, leaving no damage.

“I was hoping they’d both break. That’s a bit embarrassing.”

“Well, I think we can call that a metaphor,” sneered Chrysalis. “Everyone else?”

Blueblood looked at the glass fragments, closed his eyes and said: “I’m the one who makes this decision, at the end of the day. And after hearing the arguments, I am taking the advice of my Prime Minister. I want this formally recorded, as befits matters of state: I, Prince Rex Blueblood, acting-monarch of the Princessipality of Equestria and its Dominions & Protectorates, in the name of the Pax Equestria and the sentients of our commonwealth, declare to Queen Chrysalis of the Changelings to withdraw from Canterlot within the hour or face total war against Their Majesties’ Self-Defence Forces, and furthermore I say you’re so ugly you couldn’t pull a rotten tooth out of a dead stallion’s head!!”

This was formally recorded. Chrysalis’s profanity laden response was recorded too. And that was it: there was no turning back after this. This hurried and slapdash War Cabinet, people who would never have been there if anyone else had been available at the time, had dived right into the deep end and were heading down.

“This reminds me of debating your parties,” said Hottrot slowly, the first to speak, “in that, no offence, it’s all a load of waffle you can’t sustain. Does Chrysalis seem like the sort of mare who would make a deal if she believed her position was so strong? Or that she would stop at one city if she had the numbers to take more?”

“Or she thinks our position may be stronger than it is and wants to delay us until hers is,” said Stoutheart. “Either way, she’s made it clear ponies will suffer. Your majesty, I change my stance: we should attack as soon as possible.”

The vote was unanimous and Blueblood gave it the nod, and at that a little under six thousand ponies were committed against an entrenched army twice their size.

-----------

“There are reactionaries out there who chitchat about how nothing can be done through politics, and like to repeat that oh-so-fresh and mirthful comment about the many blood-devouring parasites. I say to them absolutely nothing, because none of them are daring enough to say that to me in person. This is a place for ponies who want to get things done.”
- Prime Minister Scalpel Wit, addressing parliament after re-election


After the Princesses, their ‘leaders’ are a hodgepodge of squabbling factions with silly names – without an obvious strong leader, they’ll be useless and cowed.
- Queen Chrysalis’ private notes.

Author's Note:

Cometh the hour, cometh the pony. (Or so we hope!)

The less obvious references I added in: Salad Daze gets her drinking habit as minor MP Arthur Greenwood (who had alcohol issues) was in the Churchill War Cabinet and a bit of Charles Kennedy's backstory (and he should have been convinced to 'dry up' for 2005); for non-Brits, Plaid Capra is a play on Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru (and the Latin name for goats); Geldmore's not just a Brigadier nod, he's also a nod to Doctor Who's proto-Brig Group-Captain Gilmore; "White Heat ff Technology" was a real line from PM Harold Wilson; and Transquito is a Beast Wars toy.

In my head, the Progressive Party are left-of-centre and mean progressive in the "technological process" sense, fitting with the tech advances we see in the show. The USP are socialist, the Conservative Party are the Conservative Party, and there's another large right-wing party called the Solarian Democrat Party but none of their senior guys escaped Canterlot in time.

Chrys had a comms globe in #1-4 of the IDW comics. Read the IDW comics.